


Ever-Evolving Formula

by ltgmars



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-26
Updated: 2011-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltgmars/pseuds/ltgmars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino and Aiba spend their entire lives marking the things important to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever-Evolving Formula

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Painting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/222180) by [kinoface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoface/pseuds/kinoface). 



> Written for [](http://jentfic-remix.livejournal.com/profile)[**jentfic_remix**](http://jentfic-remix.livejournal.com/) Cycle 7, originally posted [here](http://jentfic-remix.livejournal.com/77546.html). Set in the AU where Aimiya _aren't_ married. This is about as loose as remixes get, but hopefully the intent (and my immense love for the original) comes through. Thank you to the remix mods for their help, and to my lovely beta, [elfiepike](http://archiveofourown.org/users/elfiepike/pseuds/elfiepike)!

It's a game they invented when they were in elementary school.

But when he really thinks about it, he realizes it's not much of a game. It's probably something closer to vandalism, depending on where they're doing it. But he can't imagine their lives without it, because it's always been a part of their relationship. And, well, he and Aiba have had a _long_ relationship.

Aiba shifts and murmurs in the light-streaked darkness, warm as springtime where he's pressed up against Nino's side. He does love when Aiba's quiet like this, for once. He isn't even quiet when he comes home late from work, when he's supposed to be tired and sore but all he ends up doing is yapping like a tiny dog about anything that comes to mind. Nino huffs softly, amused at the visual.

The cap squeaks when Nino twists it off, but so does the bed, and Nino knows that Aiba doesn't mind when the bed squeaks. So he proceeds without pause, breathing slowly and evenly as he writes. The final stroke is swift and firm, confident, secure. Nino nods to himself, placing the marker on the nightstand before resting his head next to Aiba's. He smiles and closes his eyes, chasing away the last of the moonlight.

.

Their parents have been friends for a long time, longer than either of them have been alive, which basically means that starting from before they were able to keep their pee to themselves, they were strung along to the Aiba-Ninomiya monthly picnics at the park. That's where they're given the opportunity to "get to know each other" and "learn to be friends". Of course, it's really just an excuse for their parents to trade neighborhood gossip, but for his mother's sake, Nino pretends he doesn't realize it, pretends to laugh when the older Aiba boy wears his innate idiocy like a badge, pretends to enjoy the other boy's blooming curiosity and bubbling charm.

The thing is, the members of the Aiba family are loud and stretched out longer than they should be. Nino tells himself that he has trouble interacting with loud, stretched out people, so at every picnic, he takes his leave and finds respite on the nearby swingset. The rubber seat hugs his hips all the way to his waist and his toes barely reach the pavement when he starts to tiptoe the swing into motion, but he finds a good rhythm, lifting himself into the air. The air swirls around him, and he flies to the lilting melody of comfortable laughter in the distance.

Nino feels it every month, on cue. Aiba's approaching. Even from far away, Nino can tell it's the older one. He has big, glossy eyes and a smile so bright that Nino thinks staring directly into the sun might be easier. So he does just that, squinting into the sky, stubbornly pumping his legs forward and back, forward and back, his muscles creaking with the swingset until a hand shoots up and grabs at the seat right by Nino's thigh. The swing twists and buckles in the air, and Nino grips the chains like they're his lifeline, scowling down at Aiba. Aiba's smile doesn't falter.

"If you have a crush on my sister, you should talk to her directly," Nino says with practiced indifference, letting Aiba lower him back down to the ground.

"Kazunari-kun." The familiarity in his voice is almost arrogant, but there's something strangely soothing about it. Not that Nino would say as much out loud. "Why don't you want to be friends with me?"

Nino's feeling surly, so while Aiba wobbles onto the swing and positions his feet on either side of Nino's hips, Nino tells it like it is: Aiba's loud and tall, and Nino doesn't happen to like loud, tall people. Aiba swats at Nino's hair and laughs, and Nino finds himself giggling despite himself. Or for his mother's sake, maybe. Pretending to like the other boy. "Plus, your shoes are digging into my sides," Nino whines, a final attempt to be contrary, to escape the boy he's afraid will turn into his best friend.

Aiba wiggles his feet just because he can. "Like you haven't gotten used to it already."

Nino can feel his resolve crumbling, the way it always does around Aiba, and he has to admit that it isn't so bad. "Just shut up and swing."

.

Nino has to admit that permanent marker is better than peeing. "Like dogs," he says to Aiba's look of open-mouthed confusion. He thinks he's allowed the tiniest bit of exasperation because Aiba has a dog and should have gotten the reference. Nonetheless, Aiba scrunches up his face and uncaps the marker, complaining about Nino's "unpleasant tone of voice" while he doodles on the doors of the Aiba kitchen cabinets.

"You _do_ realize that stuff doesn't wash off." Aiba must have learned that much by nine years old, but maybe the length of his limbs accounts for the distance between knowing in his head and understanding with his body.

"I told you," Aiba says patiently, pausing to add a few more sprouts to the potato he's drawing, "we're marking."

"And is there any reason we're marking the kitchen?"

"Because it's right here." Aiba gives the potato wiry arms and legs, three prongs on each as if they're supposed to pass for fingers and toes.

"... because it's right here," Nino repeats. He waits a moment before he shoves Aiba into the cabinet and steals the marker, ignoring the other boy's whimpered pleas. "Let's at least settle on an easy mark. I don't want to wait for you to draw your stupid potato every time."

.

The potato is nothing but the faint outline of a memory by the time they get around to marking up the couch. Of course, that's because the potato doesn't survive the thorough scrubbing that Aiba's father makes them give it, and the most lasting mark from the whole ordeal is the knowledge of how his smacks to the ass sting more than Nino expects them to. But Nino warms at the thought of being considered family. Even though he promised himself he'd outgrow Aiba by middle school, he's still there, and he kind of doesn't mind being lumped into the Aiba family category of "useless son".

Some might even say that he likes the classification, takes pride in it. But not Nino. He admits to no such thing.

"Say, Nino," Aiba chimes. He's on his stomach, legs kicked up behind him and swinging a little as he fills in the "M".

"Hm?" Nino flops over onto his back, half on top of Aiba. He rolls his head in lazy circles against Aiba's shoulder, waiting for his turn to write the "K".

"Do you think we're ever going to get married?"

Nino laughs and swats at Aiba's legs. "What kind of question is that? We're too young to be thinking about that, aren't we? You can't even plan ahead enough to finish your summer homework."

"While that's true," Aiba says with a guilty chuckle, "we should still have hopes and dreams for the future."

"Hopes and dreams, huh?" Nino leans back and stares at the ceiling. It's high, untouched. Even loud, tall people must not be able to reach it. "Like how you're going to be a pro wrestler?"

"And how you're going to be a baseball player." Nino gets a felt tip to the ear, which he snatches away as he rolls onto his stomach, completely on top of Aiba this time.

"We don't need to have more hopes and dreams than that," Nino says, convinced that what he says is true. He just wants to spend as many days as possible not worrying about the details, rolling around in the living room on a Saturday morning and writing their initials on things that don't actually belong to them.

"That's a good K," Aiba says approvingly.

"Of course it is." Nino's written it a few hundred times by now. He finishes the last stroke with a flourish and puts the cap back on the marker. "What's so special about this spot anyway?"

"This spot at the bottom of the couch?"

Nino hums in confirmation and waits for Aiba to continue. He can feel the dancing mischief in Aiba's giggles as they ascend and fill the room, gigantic and unstoppable, shaking the both of them. It really is a wonder the ceiling hasn't fallen in yet.

"It's special because this is where I proposed to you."

Aiba's mother threatens to confiscate all of the markers in the house when they make it to the kitchen table for breakfast and her son has "STUPID" scrawled messily across his forehead.

.

As technology improves, the formula for the markers changes. It's what the packaging boasts when they pick up a replacement box at the conbini: New and improved! Right. Because it makes sense for something to be new and an improvement at the same time. The fascinating tidbits are peppered along the sides in bold lettering -- the ink doesn't bleed through paper anymore! The fumes aren't as strong as they used to be! Nino isn't inclined to believe the second bit, because uncapping a marker still gives him a rush, but at least it's true that they don't smell as bad as before.

None of that matters at the moment, though, because he's jammed against the back wall of the dugout with Aiba's tongue down his throat. He makes a noise and opens his mouth wider, his clammy fingers tugging desperately at Aiba's uniform. He finds skin under his fingertips, hot and sticky with twice-a-day practices, and Aiba gasps into his mouth in congratulations. Nino swings a leg up and pulls Aiba flush against him, and the bench jerks beneath them a little but Nino can't be bothered to notice because fuck, _fuck_. This is nothing like the playful kisses they teased each other with as children. This is Aiba, tall and lean and working up more of a sweat now than he did on the field, heavy as he presses into Nino's body, hands hard and dangerous on his hips, sneaking back to knead his ass and pull him completely off the bench, into his lap, sex drive as obvious as the rest of it. Aiba rolls back for a moment before slamming Nino against the wall again, sucking on Nino's tongue as he draws Nino's legs apart and grinds against him. Nino can barely put the pieces together, doesn't know where his hands are or where they're going, can't think, can't breathe. All he knows is that he needs Aiba closer, a lot fucking closer than he is right now, and he can tell Aiba feels the same way because he's twining their bodies together and scooting them even farther off the side of the bench and god it's so hot out, they should probably just take all their clothes off, and Nino mindlessly yanks at Aiba's shirt until the bench slides away with a screech and a bang and suddenly everything _hurts_.

"Ai... Aiba-kun..." Nino's hit his head on something, and he can taste blood from where Aiba bit his lip, but Aiba's warm and panting on top of him, and Nino's never been more turned on his life. "Aiba-kun, we..."

"Yeah," Aiba breathes. He pats his hand along the ground behind him until it lands on his bag. Of course Aiba's the type to keep condoms and lube in his bag; Nino wonders why he's even surprised. But when Aiba pulls out the marker and grins at Nino, Nino can't stop the laughter that slips past his lips, squeezes through his lungs like Aiba's hugging it out of him. He slouches into the wall and laughs, just laughs, because he knows that he's stuck with this idiot for the rest of his life.

Aiba's lips are soft against his neck and they're making it very difficult for Nino to write a proper "K" on the underside of the bench, but with some effort and more than a few pauses, he finishes successfully. Their initials together look a little more distracted and a lot more honest than they ever have before.

.

Aiba's a menace when he's drunk. Or so Nino realizes the night of Aiba's twentieth birthday, when he's sloppy and hot and not at all subtle about the intentions he's poking Nino in the back with.

"Nino," Aiba mouths into the shell of his ear. "Kazunari-kun..." And Nino's breath catches at that, because Aiba hasn't called him that since they were kids. There's something very wrong about it, about Aiba's fingers tracing the goosebumps rising on Nino's arms, about the way his mind's completely shut down and all he can feel is Aiba, like a blanket, like blood rushing downward, like his very own skin. One word shouldn't do that much to him, but it does, and Nino leans back and gives in to it. Because as much as Nino likes to pretend, likes to resist just because he can, he doesn't mind when Aiba wins.

Aiba wins on top of the coffee table that night, and then again in the shower. He tries for a hat trick in the bedroom, but he's asleep as soon as they make it to the bed.

Aiba's also talkative when he's drunk, Nino's realized over the course of the night. He takes every opportunity available to talk about how happy he is, how happy Nino makes him, how much it means to him that they've been together for so long. There in the quiet of the bedroom, Nino looks over at him, his mouth finally closed, and smiles. He pretends he wasn't counting, but 58 "I love you"s in a night is a new record, and his heart blossoms 58 times as he relives each one.

Nino closes his eyes and decides he'll take care of the giant "M" on his shoulder blade in the morning. He doesn't want to wash it away just yet.

.

When Nino opens his eyes, he sees the marker still on the nightstand, right where he left it. In the distance, he hears Aiba disposing of last night's dinner. He isn't supposed to find it romantic, but Aiba once explained to him that there's nothing more romantic than not being embarrassed by poop. Of course, by that logic, he and Aiba reached the height of romance in elementary school, but he isn't entirely sure that that's not true.

He can hear Aiba's lazy footsteps as they make their way to the bathroom door. "Wash your hands!" Nino yells, and the footsteps double back awkwardly before the faucet squeaks and water runs into the sink.

When Aiba opens the bathroom door, his eyes are glimmering like he's had too much to drink, like he's getting ready to say "I love you" 58 times the way he did one night, years ago. He doesn't give Nino a chance to speak before he bursts forward, scrambling onto the bed to pin Nino in place.

"Is today a special day?" Aiba says breathlessly, staring into Nino's eyes, and Nino almost regrets doing it because he never wanted to be in a romantic comedy. _Almost_ , except that Nino loves Aiba's eyes when they're like this.

"It's not any more special than any other day," Nino says simply, and it's kind of true. Nino's only done what they've always done, marking the things important to them.

"But," Aiba says. And maybe "but" is right this time, because it _is_ special. Because Nino's never written on Aiba's ring finger before. Because forever is a long time, and Nino isn't sure he won't lose his mind somewhere along the way, but he's willing to risk it for Aiba.

"But," Nino repeats. He waits a moment before he grins, as wide as his mouth will go. Aiba grins back and dips his head down for a kiss.


End file.
